With the entry of KDVR-Channel 31 into the 11 a.m. local news contest, the competition for tenths of a rating point is heating up.

In its first week, marked by big weather news during a spring storm, the Fox31 midday newscast narrowly beat KCNC-Channel 4, KMGH-Channel 7 and KTVD-Channel 20 in the key news demographics. (KUSA-Channel 9 carries the NBC “Today” telecast at 11 a.m., switching to a local newscast at noon.)

The 2016 Regional Murrow Awards, honoring the best in electronic journalism, were announced by The Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA) today.
KUSA won seven Murrow Awards, including overall excellence, sports, hard news and feature reporting and writing.

That was a good haul for Denver’s 9News but it wasn’t tops in the regionals: in the large market television category, KING-TV in Seattle led with nine Murrows this year.

In the regional competition, KDVR won for its 9 p.m. newscast. KCNC won for breaking news coverage of the “Planned Parenthood Shooting” and the news documentary regarding the Henthorn case. KMGH’s reports on “Children Abused: Deaths Ignored” won the news series category.

KOA won for overall excellence in the radio category. Colorado Public Radio won for continuing coverage and investigative reporting.

In the small market competition KUNC won for hard news reporting. KKTV in Colorado Springs won for its 10 p.m. newscast.

In addition to Colorado, the region includes Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. A complete list of the 2016 Regional Edward R. Murrow Awards winners can be found at rtdna.org.

In the wake of the abrupt departure of anchor Eric Kahnert from KMGH-Channel 7 comes word of a few more departing staffers:

Jon Stone, executive producer of news, is leaving to go to the University of Denver on the marketing side; Jaime Berg, news producer, is leaving to join KUSA-Channel 9.

Another earlier departure was Kim Nguyen, a valued staffer who helped launch the station’s website (and who won a regional Murrow Award for thedenverchannel.com. She jumped without a soft landing spot.

Lindsay Watts, a reporter for KMGH, left earlier this month and is back in Washington, D.C., as a reporter for the Fox affiliate.

1. One line from NBC affiliate KUSA-Channel 9 says it all: “Channel 9 won every single newscast in dominating fashion with year-over-year increases across the board.” Can’t argue with that. After showing some vulnerability a couple of Novembers ago, 9News seems to be back in the kingpin role.

2. Viewers in this market are recognizing “CBS This Morning” as an intelligent, no-nonsense option from 7-9 a.m. Both “CBS4 Morning News” and “CBS This Morning” showed growth from the previous year. KCNC-Channel 4 now ranks a solid “No. 2 morning to night.”

3. Denver likes Lester Holt just fine. The Brian Williams Factor — wasn’t a factor. For the month, “NBC Nightly News” was up 17.5 percent, “more than quadruple the nearest competitor,” according to KUSA. Holt took over as anchor in June after subbing for Williams, who was bumped to MSNBC after committing several instances of embellishments.

5. KMGH-Channel 7 can claim to beat KDVR-Channel 31 in head-to-head battles, (five newscasts; three hours a day). And “it’s a dogfight with KCNC in the mornings. We’re just getting started here,” KMGH boss Brad Remington said. Channels 4 and 7 are tied at 6 a.m. in total viewers.

6. The most popular primetime show in the market for the Nov. sweeps: “The Voice” on KUSA, followed by “The Big Bang Theory” on KCNC, “60 Minutes” on KCNC and “Modern Family” on KMGH.

Award-winning investigative reporter Tony Kovaleski will return to Denver and to Scripps’ KMGH-Channel 7 in a new dual role at the end of the month. Effective Nov. 30, Kovaleski will serve as investigative journalist and as corporate trainer for Scripps investigative reporters nationally.

As the winner of the country’s top awards for investigative journalism, Kovaleski made a mark on Denver with memorable exposes over a decade — notably exposing the slow response time of emergency equipment at Denver International Airport and the practice of state-appointed Pinnacol Assurance board members accepting expense-paid trips. He decamped to San Francisco and NBC-owned KNTV in 2012 as the chief investigative reporter for the Bay Area.

At KMGH he reunites not only with investigative teammate John Ferrugia but with his daughter, Jennifer Kovaleski, a reporter. A spot on the team opened when Keli Rabon departed for Houston.

He will conduct quarterly training workshops for Scripps staffers outside his full-time gig at KMGH, according to General Manager Brad Remington.

Kovaleski said “Scripps came to the table with a package that is an opportunity to grow my career, to talk to and train other reporters at 30 stations.” The company is “all-in on investigative, all-in on Denver.”

Denver is “truly my family’s home,” Kovaleski said, citing the chance to work with Ferrugia again as another draw. “I’m excited to be back as part of that team.” The new corporate trainer duty “gives me the opportunity to work with some of the country’s top investigative journalists to grow an already impressive Scripps legacy of investigative reporting.”

From the station’s release:

“The Denver community remembers, with great appreciation, Tony’s prior work as a determined investigator whose stories uncovered wrongs in business and government,” said Brad Remington, vice president and general manager at KMGH. “His work in San Francisco in the past several years only expanded his reputation as a dogged journalist who turns local stories into content worthy of the nation’s attention.”

“This is a significant hire for Scripps,” said Sean McLaughlin, vice president of news for the Scripps TV division. “Scripps recognizes Kovaleski’s unparalleled skills at investigations and sees the value he brings to both Denver and to fellow Scripps investigative journalists. He will conduct investigative training workshops across the company helping other markets to produce the same high level of award-winning investigations.”

Kovaleski left KMGH in 2012 for the NBC owned-and-operated station in San Francisco. As NBC Bay Area’s chief investigative reporter, Kovaleski exposed significant security failures at critical electric substations in California. He also uncovered a major rodent infestation inside a California food distributor that forced a national food recall.

His work over his career garnered numerous journalism awards including the duPont-Columbia, Edward R. Murrow, Sigma Delta Chi and National Headliner Award. He was Colorado’s “Best Specialty Reporter” in 2004 and 2006 and “Reporter of the Year” for the Texas Associated Press in 1997. At KMGH, Kovaleski will team up with investigator John Ferrugia to give Denver7 one of the strongest investigative teams in the country.

The 29th annual Heartland Emmy Awards, announced Saturday night, gave KUSA-Channel 9 top honors with the award for overall excellence. Education reporter Nelson Garcia won the journalistic enterprise award for his project “Cutting Class.” The station also took the award for news excellence under former news director Patti Dennis.

The Denver Post won in four categories, upstaging local TV outlets for best human interest series, documentary, feature segment, and tied with Channel 9 for short-form editing.

KDVR-Channel 31 won best evening newscast for its 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. newscasts as well as best weekend newscast. Justin Joseph drew honors for continuing coverage, reopening a case leading to murder charges. The station won for environmental reporting for its program on Colorado’s floods “One Year Later.”

KMGH-Channel 7 won best morning newscast and picked up an award in the breaking news category. Marshall Zelinger won as talent for general assignment reporting. Matt Makens won as weather anchor.

KCNC-Channel 4 won for business/consumer special for a story on Union Station’s redevelopment. Vic Lombardi won as top sports anchor.

KUSA’s Brandon Rittiman won for the “Truth Tests” political news series. Chris Hansen won as best new photographer. The station also scored best daytime newscast for its 4 p.m. news and won in the spot news category for helicopter coverage of a high-speed chase.

Award-winning investigative reporter Keli Rabon, who joined KMGH-Channel 7 in 2012 and made a national splash with her series on untested rape kits in 2013, will depart KMGH for the ABC-owned station KTRK in her hometown of Houston.

In a note to station staffers, General Manager Brad Remington expressed “disappointment,” noting, “we’d like to think we made Keli agonize over her decision this week, but ultimately the hometown draw was too much…We also want to say that the tradition of great investigative reporting will continue at KMGH. Scripps, the station, myself and our new news director are all extremely committed to investigative journalism, and so the search will begin immediately for a terrific investigative reporter to join this elite team.”

“I was having to choose between one family and another family,” Rabon said. “In the end, Houston was where I felt like I need to be. Brad moved heaven and earth to try to keep me and I’ve only known him for a month… His dedication to investigations made it so hard.”

“It was the hardest decision of my life,” she said. “I haven’t had a good night sleep in weeks.”

In jumping to Houston, Rabon will go to a larger TV market, from No. 17 to No. 10, according to Nielsen’s rankings. Part of the appeal of working for a network-owned station is the easier access to network news shows such as “Good Morning America.” Keep an eye out for Rabon’s reporting to turn up on ABC in the future.

KMGH-Channel 7 on Thursday named Lindsay Radford news director, effective April 30. She fills a position open for seven months (since Jeff Harris left for Cleveland last August). Radford returns to Denver from the Twin Cities, where she has been news director at KSTP and KSTC in St. Paul/Minneapolis for seven years.

Radford is known for bringing a focus on investigative and enterprise reporting to the Minneapolis stations, boosting the output to 55 hours of newscasts per week, and winning national awards for the effort.

Under her direction, KSTP won the prestigious Peabody Award for its yearlong investigation into military procedures that put service members at risk in Iraq and a National Emmy for its coverage of a deadly bridge collapse in Minneapolis.

Brad Remington, a former Denver TV news director, will begin March 9 as the new VP/General Manager of Scripps’ KMGH-TV, ending the station’s five-month period without a GM.

The move marks a return to the Denver ABC affiliate for Remington, who served as managing editor there from 1989-1996, until he took his first news director post in Albuquerque.

He later moved to news director positions in St. Louis, Denver (at Fox’s KDVR) and Phoenix. He left KTVK in Phoenix to return to Denver a few years ago. He has been running a franchised chiropractic business in the interim.

Remington replaces Byron Grandy, who left the station abruptly in September after six years as general manager. Remington’s name had been circulated in recent weeks as the likely candidate for the job.

His first order of business: The station is currently without a news director, since Jeff Harris moved to the Scripps station WEWS in his hometown of Cleveland last year.

Scripps’ Steve Wasserman, interim manager at KMGH, released this statement:

“Denver is a high-profile market in the company, and Brad possesses the unique combination of management style, editorial judgment and knowledge of the local area to serve the community and to meet the needs of advertisers,” said Steve Wasserman, vice president and divisional general manager for Scripps. “Brad has the right entrepreneurial spirit and understanding of the changing habits of consumers to drive KMGH in the right direction for our news products across multiple platforms and customized sales solutions for area businesses.”

With neither general manager nor news director in place, KMGH Channel 7 is a station adrift.

When KMGH General Manager Byron Grandy abruptly left the station in September with no explanation, the corporate bosses at E.W. Scripps sent Steve Wasserman, an interim executive from WPTV West Palm Beach, to calm nerves and steady the ship.

Joanne Ostrow has been watching TV since before "reality" required quotation marks. "Hill Street Blues" was life-changing. If Dickens, Twain or Agatha Christie were alive today, they'd be writing for television. And proud of it.